It's a first

Well, this is a first of many things - my first time trying a blog, the first post of that blog, my first time living alone (granted that's been going on for months...), among other things. Seeing as I'm well known as the type of person who starts something, only to give it up out of boredom very shortly after, we'll see how long this actually lasts...

Tonight was an interesting night for me. I, as usual, was hanging out alone for Valentines Day (I know, I know, woe is me...) and decided to do something about my immense boredom. The normal thing to do in such a situation is obviously to cook something. What's that you say? Cooking something when bored isn't normal? Well, then clearly you haven't been introduced to my version of normal... So what did I choose to make to cheer myself up and waste away the night? Chicken, of course.


Thanks to everyone's favorite giant warehouse store (aka Costco), I happened to have 2, count em, 2 whole chickens sitting in my refrigerator. The only question at this point became how to cook them. Thinking about it, I realized that the two most common methods for whole chickens were probably oven roasting and poaching. Since I had two chickens on hand, I thought to myself, why not cook one each way?

Poaching:
Such a good way to incorporate lots of flavor into meat while cooking... For my poached chicken, I just dropped the whole chicken into a pot, tossed in half an onion, some carrots, rosemary, thyme, and a couple bay leaves. I poured in the remainder of a container of chicken stock, about 3 cups of white wine, and then topped the pot off with some water. After bringing the pot to a boil and simmering for 45 minutes, my first chicken was done. IT'S SO EASY!!!!

Roasting:
While poaching is great to automatically have a juicy and flavorful chicken, there's just something about roasting at a nice high temperature that gives a totally different flavor profile. I wanted to keep this one simple, so all it got before going in the oven was a sprinkle of salt and pepper both inside and out, half an onion and 2 carrots tossed inside the cavity, and a drizzle of olive oil. Into the oven at 450 for an hour, and I was on my way. Sadly I neglected to think about the fact that leaving an uncovered chicken in the oven could lead to oil/fat splatter, so after about 25 minutes i found myself in a smoke-filled apartment with the smoke alarm going off... Thankfully smoke is easily taken care of...

An hour later and look what a beautiful chicken I have :)

The best part about this chicken was how absolutely crunchy the skin was - it was cooked to crackly, golden-brown, salty deliciousness. Honestly there's nothing better than that perfect point of chicken skin...

So here I am an hour and a half later, with 2 perfectly cooked and dismembered chickens all boxed up and sitting in my fridge. I can't wait to use it all in different delicious things. I'm thinking I have enough chicken there to feed me lunches and dinners for at least the next week... The irony of the whole situation? I didn't even eat any of it because I got hungry while it was cooking, and heated up the last of my leftovers to eat instead... I must be crazy.

(poached on the left, roasted on the right)

So, to end the night, what else is there to do once you've finished cooking and dismembering 2 chickens? Why, make delicious stock with their remains of course... So, to the poaching liquid I added all the bones with whatever meat was left clinging to them, the veggies from roasting, and some additional herbs. Now it sits, bubbling happily away on my stove top, probably to go all night in order to extract every last bit of chickeny flavor.

  

What's next? Who knows, though I'm just getting a sourdough starter going, so we'll see how that works out. I also have giant bags of spinach, almonds, peanuts, and apples sitting on my kitchen counter. I'm sure something great will come of those...